UN says raw Gaza sewage poses danger for region

By KARIN LAUB, The Associated Press
| 10:05 a.m.Sept. 3, 2009

Palestinians stand at the entrance of a United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), warehouse in the Shati refugee camp, in Gaza City, Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2009. The European Commission has announced on Tuesday a contribution of 13 million Euro to support the Job Creation Programme of UNRWA which will help create more than 1,4 million work days for unemployed Palestinians in Gaza. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)
— AP

Palestinians stand at the entrance of a United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), warehouse in the Shati refugee camp, in Gaza City, Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2009. The European Commission has announced on Tuesday a contribution of 13 million Euro to support the Job Creation Programme of UNRWA which will help create more than 1,4 million work days for unemployed Palestinians in Gaza. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)
/ AP

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip 
U.N. agencies and international aid groups urged Israel on Thursday to immediately ease its Gaza Strip blockade to allow in spare parts and building materials to repair the territory's dilapidated sewage and water networks.

In a joint appeal, they also warned of environmental and health hazards, not only to Gaza, but to nearby Israel.

Some 13 to 21 million gallons (about 50 to 80 million liters) of raw or partially treated waste sewage are pumped from Gaza into the Mediterranean every day due to lack of treatment plants, and some of the waste is floating toward Israel, U.N. officials said. An aquifer shared by Gaza and Israel is running low and its water is increasingly unfit for consumption, they said.

"We need the full cooperation of the government of Israel to allow in the necessary supplies and equipment so we can collectively address the problem," said Maxwell Gaylard, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator in the Palestinian territories.

Israeli officials had no immediate comment Thursday.

Israel and Egypt have kept Gaza largely sealed since a violent takeover of the territory by the Islamic militant Hamas in 2007. Following its three-week military offensive against Hamas last winter, Israel has allowed in some food and basic goods, but continues to ban virtually all construction material, such as cement and pipes.

Israel argues that Hamas could divert supplies for military use, such as building rockets; Israel launched the Gaza war in response to years of Hamas rocket fire on Israeli border towns.

Israel has allowed in some material for repairs of water and sewage systems, but aid officials say it's not nearly enough to fix the problem.

The blockade has halted repairs of Gaza's already overburdened sewage and water networks, and slowed construction of a globally funded, multimillion dollar wastewater treatment plant for northern Gaza. During the war, water and sewage pipes suffered more damage.

Gaylard, other U.N. officials and representatives of international aid groups held a news conference Thursday near sewage lagoons in northern Gaza to highlight the problem. One of the lagoons overflowed in 2007, killing five people.

U.N. officials said that some 10,000 Gazans don't have access to a water network, and that some 60 percent of a population of 1.4 million receive water only intermittently. Gazans use less than one-third of the amount of water consumed by Israelis, they said.

"The deterioration and breakdown of water and sanitation facilities in Gaza is compounding an already severe and protracted denial of human dignity in the Gaza Strip," Gaylard said.